Dude, it's a llama!

So I've been trying to write a journal about my trip to Peru but have so far only got to my third day and I'm worried I'm going to forget it all before I actually get down to writing about it. I type much faster than I write and also I spend way more time on my computer than I would ever spend writing stuff down, so I figured I'd write it here.

I flew out from Heathrow Airport at 16h45 on the 19th July - my mum drove me to the airport to see me off which was really nice, and saved me trekking across London with a heavy rucksack. It was the first time I'd been on a transatlantic flight since I was fifteen - the rest of the (many) flights I've been on since then have been with Ryanair or Easyjet, so I was naturally pretty impressed by the size of the airplane and the fact that there were TVs in front of the seats. I also got a window seat which was awesome. The flight went pretty quickly, I watched a myriad of trashy films (The Time Travelers Wife - good, made me cry; The Last Song - Miley Cyrus film, fine if you're in the mood for trash/are trying to while away 8 hours in a confined space; The Bounty Hunter - similar to The Last Song only funnier) and enjoyed some cardboardy food. I didn't sleep at all which was the start of a trend that would continue over the next 40 or so hours. My connection via New York was easy but really boring, then the next flight I got put in an aisle seat which was rubbish - not only that but an aisle seat in front of a screaming baby. I managed to sleep for about an hour and a half, but very very badly, and watched some films I can't remember.

I landed in Lima, Peru at about 06h30, ready and just thrilled to wait seven hours in an airport. I found a shop that sold Dairy Milk chocolate (happy!) and wandered round, eventually deciding to go to Starbucks where I tried in vain to remember a single word of Spanish (I eventually mustered up enough to order a frappacino and a sandwich). There was no internet, so I read a book (Dreamland, by Sarah Dessen - really really good) and then ended up talking to three girls who were leaving, having been travelling round Peru for a couple of weeks - they told me all about their trip, so it was nice to have some sort of vague idea of what was to come! (Illness and lots of walking, by the sound of it) My flight to Puno, where I was meeting Katie, left at 14h45 and I fell asleep briefly going down the runway which was bizarre because I woke up in the air thinking 'eh??'. We flew via Arequipa which is in Canyon Country - unbelievable scenery, I had my nose pressed up against the window for about 85% of the flight, it was phenomenal. Here is the only picture I have of it:

I landed in Puno around 5pm, where it was freezing, and after a brief serenade from a typical Peruvian band, a minor panic when my bag was literally the last one put on the conveyor belt, I got a minibus (colectivo) to the town centre. I managed to befriend some bilingual people and they asked the bus driver if he would drop me off at my hostel which he did, thankfully, because Puno was a real dump, and I was a bit nervous about walking round it by myself with my huge rucksack - I definitely wouldn't have been able to run away from potential muggers or anything - I'd have just fallen over on my back! Anyway, Katie was waiting for me in the hotel foyer so we scared the hotel manager briefly by screaming and hugging a lot, and then got shown to our room - oh wait, sorry, I mean ROOMS because they hadn't put us in the same one, I ended up sharing with three German girls who hated us because we kept accidentally being really loud when they were trying to sleep (who the hell goes to bed at 8pm??). We went out for dinner and despite really liking my dinner, I was so tired (having not properly slept for nearly 2 days) I eventually just had to lie my head on the table and wait for Katie to finish. Getting into bed was pretty traumatic because I was on the top bunk and there wasn't a ladder! I had to climb up the frame at the end of the bed, which wobbled alarmingly (I got Katie to hold it steady for me) and then when I got up there I discovered my water bottle had leaked in the middle of my bed. I was far too delirious to think properly, so only got under two sheets which meant I was freezing the entire night and consequently slept appallingly. The grande finale to my escapades with the bed came when, in the morning, I realised that the lack of ladder prevented me getting down easily as well. Katie had irritated the German girls some more by waking one of them up to get into my room to wake me up, and so she made the helpful suggestion of just jumping off - it wasn't that far, only 6 feet, and I decided to just go for it. Unfortunately I was wearing fluffy socks and the floor was lino so I landed flat on my arse. It was quite spectacular. We fled the hostel pretty quickly after that, and caught a bus (a snazzy bus with a tv and reclining seats! A coach, to be honest) to Cusco. On the way, we stopped for a break just before we got into Cusco territory (the department, not the town) and the most AMAZING alpaca strolled into view, being led by a woman in typical Peruvian dress who was also holding a baby llama. It was brilliant. Here is a picture:

Cusco turned out to be a lot nicer than Puno - it's way more touristy, and consequently a lot richer. People only go to Puno to see Lake Titicaca (which, I am proud to say, I completely failed to see), whereas Cusco is a destination in its own right. Our hostel was on the top of a crazy steep hill - we literally jumped out of the taxi because it was parked at such a precarious angle! Here is a view from just outside our hostel - the buildings at the bottom are Cusco town centre. Yeah. I know.

Anyway, the hostel was called Loki and is notorious as a party hostel. It served amazing food (we lived off toasties and chicken sandwiches for like, three days). We had a little wander round Cusco where I nearly got us robbed and got nagged into buying a hat from a small child.

The day before our trek to Machu Picchu (the reason we were in Cusco), we went to the office of the tour guys we were going with and met the people we were going to be trekking with for five days - our tour guide, Manu who was native Quetchua, so very Peruvian, and a Dutch German family - Tabea (18) and her mum, dad and aunt. They were really nice, so that was cool, and Harry, the dad was so funny. Tabea was amazing, we got on really well with her which was excellent! We were informed that we would be collected from our hotel at 3.30am (I think?) the next day which was naturally greeted with whoops of joy. So, after buying me a llama jumper (which probably prevented me getting pneumonia), we went back to the hostel fully intent on getting a full nights sleep. You have anticipated the punchline, I'm sure - stupid party hotels. We went to the bar to check the internet and get a toastie, and ended up staying there til just gone midnight, talking to various people and dancing.

At some godforsaken hour in the morning, we stumbled out of bed and amassed our various belongings, then went to wait in the lobby, where there were loads of people coming in after crazy nights out on the town. How cool did we feel? ;) We were driven to a town where most people start the trek, but were we were merely given breakfast (and saw lots of guinea pigs!) - I learnt the word panqueque for pancake which was just the start of many brilliant words I would learn that holiday and then use at every available opportunity and some opportunities that weren't really available but maybe there was just a silence or something. We were then driven along an insane road which had me and Katie clutching onto each other in terror. We also spent most of the journey terrifying the rest of the bus with our hysterics - such gems as 'Hey, this is pretty!' - 'Eh, it's no Letchworth' (about the Andes) were bandied around and, due to minor sleep deprivation and the general hysterics Katie and I fail to avoid every time we are together, were treated like the joke of the century. (It was pretty funny, to be fair). You could just hear the rest of the bus thinking 'holy crap, I have to spend the next five days with these madwomen', sometimes actually out loud.

Oh boy, now I have to write about the trek! This will probably be less of a mission than actually doing it, but we shall see! We set off a ridiculously long way from where the rest of the world normally starts on our trek (as in, we walked less than everyone else!) - called the Salkantay trek because it goes round the Salkantay glacier, and is in no way related to the Inca Trail which goes a completely different way, takes half the time and is considerably lower in altitude to this insane route. We set off and the altitude was immediately noticeable. Luckily we were only carrying our daypacks because the horses had our big packs - phew! Katie and I were sharing one so that would have been particularly horrific. I can't remember how high up we were at this stage, but we were about to climb VERY quickly. We set off around 9am and stopped for lunch (by which time I had already fallen behind quite dramatically) around 12pm - soup, hot squash, chicken, rice and something else I think. Pretty good!

This photo was taken I think just before we started climbing what normally would not have been a troubling hill, but as we must have been at about 4,300 metres at the least at that point, there was not a whole lot of oxygen, so we got out of breath insanely quickly - it was like we'd been running for ages (Well. Not ages in my case, that's for sure!). I was seriously struggling, Katie seemed to be doing a lot better than me which was slightly galling, as the only reason I went on the trek with her was because I thought she'd be struggling with me ;) Only kidding, but I was not having a happy time. This was the last ascent before we reached the highest point of our trek - 4600m, right next to the Salkantay glacier which was stunning.

The rest of that day was a steep descent into a valley (it was really gorgeous - a mixture of Jurassic Park and a fairytale, particularly with the glacier looming over the whole picture) which I completely failed to do with anything approaching speed or grace. It took me about half an hour longer than the rest of the group, though Katie waited for me and chivvied me along so I caught them up eventually! Our tour guide, whose ability to completely misjudge distances and the time it might take to do them became legendary by the end of the trek, told us it would take ten minutes from a certain point. Tabea and I were falling behind by then and once we had been walking for about 45 minutes after this point began to get a bit worried because we couldn't see anyone. Then we saw Manu, Tabea's dad and Katie waiting for us to tell us that the campsite had moved and it was just 20 minutes further on. Manu disappeared ahead, and another 45 minutes later it had got dark - luckily I had a torch - and we were stumbling through this dark forest with absolutely no idea where the hell we were or whether we'd missed the campsite or anything. It was pretty scary, and Katie and I were on the verge of tears pretty much the whole time - hey, you try dealing with a situation like that on an hour and a half's sleep and after a full days walking. NOT cool! Eventually it turned out that the campsite had moved yet again and the chef, whose name escapes me even though I spent a whole freaking day trying to learn it, came to get us with torches and the offer of a horse (which we had also had for the steep climb, though none of us had accepted it because as if you would!). We were seriously pissed off with the world by then! However, we were also exhausted so we slept phenomenally well.

Woke up the next day to discover that I had managed to burn spectacularly - a special trick of mine, which I have now refined to the point of being able to burn despite having factor 30 on (stupid altitude). Nothing especially notable happened on the second day - lots of walking (lots). We saw chickens with eagle preventing capes on, a small Peruvian baby, many rivers and rapids, crossed a crazy bridge, saw some waterfalls, did some successful and not so successful Gandalf poses on a bridge (Katie's were excellent, mine were rubbish) and finally arrived at our campsite while it was still light! Amazing. We saw much fauna and flora, e.g. caterpillars and orchids. (We saw a condor on the first day which was so cool!)

Our campsite on the second night was pretty cool, but the best bit was the turkey who was wandering round getting MEGA pissed at everyone who was tramping over his turf, haha. Did you know that turkeys' red bits on their face turn blue when they're angry? This one did, anyway! It was hilarious. The chef kept running at it and then it wouldn't back down and he'd get scared and run away!

The third day was really easy. We walked up a bit, then down a bit and then had a rest, and then it was almost completely flat until lunch. It was excellent! My kind of trekking, THAT'S for sure :D Not to mention what we did after lunch which was get a bus...! We are so lazy, but I don't think we had another option for that. Anyway, so once we'd really rapidly and easily reached the campsite for the night (called Santa Theresa), we went and hung out in some hot springs. Oh yeah. Definitely my kind of trekking. It was really nice swimming around and being warm and not walking and then, just before we left, a big group of guys got in the water and started yelling stuff at us (like, chicas, and stuff in spanish), and they made us laugh, but then we had to leave...only to, a bit later, see them all sit down at a table opposite us at the campsite - turns out they were staying there too (pretty much like everyone else we even vaguely made eye contact with at the hot springs!). We got talking to them eventually, turned out they were largely Argentinian plus a Mexican and a Spaniard. These adorable kids who I guess lived on or near the campsite put on a show for us with dancing to music, it was really cute! Then, just to ruin the image, most of us got dragged into dancing with them - Katie, I seem to recall, nominated me as a candidate. Turns out, I cannot dance for love nor money. This little 10 year old kid was doing all these steps and I was just standing there going 'WHAT? WHAT?!'. It didn't go well. And then all the Argentinians got up and were excellent, it was very depressing. English dancing culture is rubbish! Isaac is the guy in the picture, he is the Mexican, and he was similarly excellent.

Also running around was a monkey called Pancho (word for monkey in espanol = pana, apparently), who fell asleep in Ruth (the Aunt, who isn't called Ruth, but something crazy and German like Ruth) and Isaac's arms. So cute:

The next day we set off bright and early, after having provided the Argentinians with medical assistance (plasters). We drove in a van again (oh, the shame!) and we actually drove past the boys who were walking! We drove to the hydroelectric plant thing which is at the entrance to the Machu Picchu Sanctuary (though not Machu Picchu itself) where we had to log in with our passport numbers and everything. We had lunch with an adorable puppy and then the chef took our bags with him on the train (we love him!) and we walked along a railway track which was delightfully flat. I was suffering quite badly by this point because my sunburn was still there and it felt like my face was being burnt off everytime I went in the sun (naturally I didn't have a hat, so I had to borrow one from Ruth). Also by that point I had developed some really attractive spots on my chin which would gradually, over the next few days turn into hideously painful scabs. Walking along the railway was nice, Katie, Tabea and I had nice chats about stuff, and it was really cool in the shade. Then, we rounded a corner and... got our first sight of Machu Picchu!

We had nearly made it! We followed the railway round the mountain, eventually turning our back on MP, and ended up in Aguas Calientes, the town where the railway finishes and where everyone starts their Machu Picchu visit from - you have to get a bus up (well, you can walk, but obviously we didn't). We were staying in a hostel that night - seriously, we did not do this thing properly - and then going up to Machu Picchu in the morning. Really early in the morning. That evening we found the hot springs after which the town is named, which weren't nearly as nice as the ones we'd been in the night before, but hot nevertheless! The Argentines came and found us after a bit which was cool, and then we had to go back for dinner (after having very naughtily skipped helping with the bags!). We met a couple of the boys in the square after dinner, which was fun, and then went back to bed - another 3am start for us! Joy! The reason, incidentally, we had to get up so early was in order to get on the first bus, or nearly the first bus at least, to see if we could be in the first 400 people into Machu Picchu in order to be able to climb Wayna Picchu, the mountain you see in the background of all the classic shots of Machu Picchu. It's protected because of erosion so only 400 people are allowed to climb up it each day - guides, like Manu, are never allowed up, because there's so many of them. Obviously he could go up if he wanted but I think he'd have to pay to get in, and not be there as a guide.

So, the start of day five of the trek - the day this had all been leading up to - Machu Picchu Day! I was woken up at some delightful hour (about 2.30am) by lots of people shouting outside my room, and then Manu roused us all and we sleepily ate breakfast and made our way down to the bus station, where there was already a long queue. I was dreading having my face burning like yesterday so I bought a hat at one of the shops that were open - a serious error in fashion, but a win for face protection! Katie begged me not to buy it but under some delusion that I looked fine, I did, and thankfully didn't wear it in any of the MP photos otherwise I would have had to burn them! Anyway, we got the bus up (yet another twisty road, more terror!) and joined the queue to get into Machu Picchu which was fairly dispiriting because it looked like there were already roughly a million people ahead of us. Anyway, as it turned out, Manu has contacts or something, because he managed to get us a place climbing up Wayna Picchu! We must have been some of the last people allowed up - Manu told us we were definitely in the last 40.

Manu accompanied us into MP to give us a bit of a tour, after which he would leave us to climb WP, and he would go back to Cusco. His tour was actually really good - interesting and informative. He told us to view MP like a university - because no-one actually knows what it was there for. He said that when the Inca (only the King was called an Inca, the actual people were called Quetchua) wanted to conquer people, he'd send diplomats or something to say 'hey, look, in exchange for all this gold and food and stuff, we want you to be on our side' etc. but the condition was that the rulers had to leave their countries and come and live in Inca-dom (Cusco). This obviously caused some bitterness amongst the conquered people so, to combat that, the Inca built a place that was miles away from anywhere and practically impossible to get into where he could put all the children of these people, so they would grow up viewing the Inca as a god and not have bitterness towards him instilled in them by their parents. Pretty harsh, huh. Obviously this is speculation, but there are records showing that this place for the kids was built - whether it was MP or not, is not certain. Interestingly, Machu Picchu is the name of the mountain near the city (citadel? what is it?) - no-one actually knows what the Incas called it. All the records were lost when the Spanish came and took over - they burnt them all. Way to go!

Anyway, it was so amazing being there - when we arrived there, however, it was completely covered in fog, we couldn't see from one end to the other (which we could when it cleared, later). In the midst of this delightful cloud cover, we climbed up Wayna Picchu which was INSANELY hard - steep steps all the way up. Given that we'd just been walking for four days, we were not exactly in the best condition to do it, although having said that, at least we were used to walking. I think I probably would have died if we'd done it without having done any walking at all! This is how much we could see on our way up:

Afterwards we looked back at the mountain and there was much eye popping - there is no WAY I would have gone up that mountain with anything remotely approaching enthusiasm had I seen how steep it was beforehand. Katie nearly fell off the mountain on the way up because she was dying of laughter as I was wearing a really stupid outfit (no need to show you :D). When we got up there we couldn't see MP because of all the clouds which didn't really make the effort seem worthwhile, it has to be said. Still, it meant we got to sit down for ages, waiting! Also, it felt kind of like we were in heaven or something:

Eventually the clouds did clear and we saw Machu Picchu in all its glory which was weird 'cause we hadn't really seen it from the ground yet, but there you go. It was a lot bigger than I expected. Nothing else really happened up there except we took many photos and a woman got stuck on a precipice and had to be rescued by some people which was kind of hilarious. Then we had to go down which was terrifying and there were people running down which made it even more terrifying!

Once we were back down, we were free to wander round MP by ourselves, so after having sat down and recovered for a while (honestly, going down was almost worse than going up), we set off with my guidebook and had a look round. Describing it does seem a bit pointless, and I'm not going to upload all my photos of it because they're largely all the same! Go there! We spent a reasonably large amount of time trying to find the classic Machu Picchu picture - with all the buildings and Wayna Picchu in the background - and eventually succeeded! Katie and Tabea took amusing pictures of them "leaning" on WP (ah, perspective!), but my face was burning too much for me to want to spend time positioning myself in the sun so unfortunately I don't have a picture of me doing that. There were many many llamas which was excellent although they are actually kind of weird up close. Still! Llamas!

We spent a lot of time sitting down soaking in the atmosphere and trying to find me shady spots (I'm pathetic). Walking round MP was pretty hard because it was all stairs and frankly I think we'd all had our fill of them going up Wayna Picchu, but we crawled our way to the highest point (or, as near as we could be bothered to get) and then went back down and had to sit down again! We were sitting down on one of the terraces for a while, and when we stood up wolf whistles and shouting came down to us - the boys were sitting right up the top on a wall. None of us could be bothered to come down/go up, however, so we didn't talk to them.

Soon after that we left MP to go back down to Aguas Calientes and back to the hostel (via another terrifying bus ride). For some slightly bizarre reason, since it was about 5pm, everyone decided it would be a good idea to have dinner then. I wasn't remotely hungry, so Katie and I decided to go and have a wander round the town - we went into the square and sat down there and talked generally, which was really nice, as we hadn't really had any time just us when we weren't walking for ages and obviously any successful relationship needs alone time ;) Haha. After about an hour, Fer, one of the Argentinians came into the square too, and sat down with us. We arranged to meet up with them all in the square in Cusco the next day in the evening - we were all getting a train back that evening, although they were getting a sensibly timed train at 7.30 and we were getting one at 10pm that got into somewhere outside of Cusco at 2am. Tabea arrived at some point, and then Katie, Tabea and I went to get dinner in a restaurant off the square, with a seriously incompetent waitress, and then we ended up being conned regarding free drinks. Still, my burger was pretty good.

After that we went to the train station where Annette (Tabea's mum) gave Katie and I presents - a fluffy llama and a stolen purse each (heh). Then we got on the train, and I promptly fell asleep and slept pretty much the whole way back to Ollepata (or something) where we got a minibus back to our hostel - except he dropped us off at the bottom of that hill (we were staying at Loki again) so we had to walk all the way up it at 3am with Katie carrying both our day packs and me carrying the big rucksack! Not cool! We got into our room and crashed around a bit, giggling hysterically, miraculously not annoying anyone, and then crashed out in our beds, happy to be back in the real world!